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For ourselves, while whatever in us belongs to the body of
the All should be yielded to its action, we ought to make sure
that we submit only within limits, realizing that the entire man
is not thus bound to it: intelligent servitors yield a part of
themselves to their masters but in part retain their personality,
and are thus less absolutely at beck and call, as not being
slaves, not utterly chattels.
The changing configurations within the All could not fail to be
produced as they are, since the moving bodies are not of equal
speed.
Now the movement is guided by a Reason-Principle; the relations
of the living whole are altered in consequence; here in our own
realm all that happens reacts in sympathy to the events of that
higher sphere: it becomes, therefore, advisable to ask whether we
are to think of this realm as following upon the higher by
agreement, or to attribute to the configurations the powers
underlying the events, and whether such powers would be vested in
the configurations simply or in the relations of the particular
items.
It will be said that one position of one given thing has by no
means an identical effect- whether of indication or of causation-
in its relation to another and still less to any group of others,
since each several being seems to have a natural tendency [or
receptivity] of its own.
The truth is that the configuration of any given group means
merely the relationship of the several parts, and, changing the
members, the relationship remains the same.
But, this being so, the power will belong, not to the positions
but to the beings holding those positions?
To both taken together. For as things change their relations, and
as any one thing changes place, there is a change of power.
But what power? That of causation or of indication?
To this double thing- the particular configuration of particular
beings- there accrues often the twofold power, that of causation
and that of indication, but sometimes only that of indication.
Thus we are obliged to attribute powers both to the configuration
and to the beings entering into them. In mime dancers each of the
hands has its own power, and so with all the limbs; the relative
positions have much power; and, for a third power, there is that
of the accessories and concomitants; underlying the action of the
performers' limbs, there are such items as the clutched fingers
and the muscles and veins following suit.
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